Reddit reviews 240 Double and Triple Tonguing Exercises for Trumpet

I had trouble for years. Everyone always flipped me to 175 in Arban's and just said go. I used to spend ridiculous amounts of time with a metronome at ridiculously slow tempos (like quarters at 40) trying to make decent, even Ts and Ks.

The book that helped me more than anything was this one. It breaks up both double and triple tonguing very systematically. If you're willing to put the work in, but you get frustrated because you can't immediately do several clean rotations in a row like Arban's asks, this would be great for you.

It starts very slowly with single rotations on and off the beat and just gradually adds more complexity as the book goes. More rotations, more changing notes over small intervals while multiple tonguing... then arpeggios while multiple tonguing, etc. It's a much more gradual approach than Arban's and it really worked for me.


Advice

The other thing is give yourself permission to sound like shit. As we get better with pathologize it when things don't sound or feel great at the beginning of a warm up or we can't make something like our double tongue immediately less clunky.

You're going to sound like shit, probably even when you're slow. Rather than worry that you're doing it wrong and try to fix it constantly at a slow tempo to where your Ks sound like Ts... just practice actually doing it. It will sound terrible at first. Just let it. But with consistent practice just trying to get comfortable with the technique at a reasonable, but not ridiculous tempo, your ear and your tongue will start figuring it out and start cleaning up. So long as you have a sound concept in your head of what you want it to sound like and your ears are turned on, you'll get there eventually.


Here's the first two pages of the book if you wanna see what it looks like. Repeat each of the short exercises 3-5 times. I personally would recommend ignoring his metronome markings and picking one slow metronome marking that you can play these at around 60-80 and when you want to speed them up, speed them all up at the same speed rather than futzing with the metronome of each different one. So just play these through with repeats every day. Don't spend too much time on it. I find that double tonguing can be very tiring and if you over-do it, you'll get diminishing returns. Do this as a part of your regular routine of fundamentals.

If you like it, get the book and continue. Eventually you'll find yourself needing to review every other exercise and with less repeats each day while focusing on the deeper exercises that are more complex. Also, you'll want to work in the triple tonguing section as well. It's the same idea as the double, but a whole section of its own. Slow approach that get gradually harder.

Good luck!